Misrepresentative Rohrer on natural gas

On Friday, July 18, Pennsylvania state representative Samuel Rohrer (R-128th District) and a group named “House Republican Public Relations” distributed a press release that misrepresents the serious issues surrounding the potential drilling of tens of thousands of horizontal and vertical deep gas wells throughout the Marcellus Shale area. The press release is structured to scare readers, and to smear those in government who show the slightest concern for the environment, or to put it more bluntly, do not simply roll out the red carpet for the gas companies and the drilling industry. Negative “talking point” tactics are employed to emotionalize the issues, to create an “us against them” interaction (Republicans vs. Democrats, “Pennsylvania farmers” vs. “radical environmentalism”), and to dumb it down to a point where natural gas is confused with the current price of gasoline and home-heating oil. In this scenario, drilling becomes patriotic, while concern for our land, air and drinking water becomes “elitism.”

On the morning of July 22, WNYC Radio in New York City published an in-depth report on the environmental concerns that Rohrer attempts to whitewash. Although the WNYC radio report revolves around actions taken and not taken by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) in support of a bill the DEC railroaded through the legislature, the main body of the article is extremely informative on the major environmental problems posed by horizontal deep well drilling and fracturing. The report also exposes the astonishing ignorance of some very important people within the DEC who repeated false industry “facts” to New York legislators during their PowerPoint presentation. This false information helped sway many legislators to vote overwhelmingly in favor of the gas industry interests. See wnyc.org/news/articles/104157 for this report by Ilya Marritz. Another excellent article by Abrahm Lustgarten appeared the same day. See timesunion.com:80/AspStories/story.asp?storyid=705332

Contrast the information in those two articles with the language that appears in the Rohrer press release. Rohrer calls an instance where the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection enforced existing law a “strong-arm tactic.” He demands that Pennsylvania environmental protections be gutted: “Governor Rendell must immediately exercise his executive authority to overrule [former DEP] Secretary McGinty’s restrictions imposed on all drilling companies attempting to access Marcellus Shale gas deposits” or “risk losing this potential multi-billion revenue stream opportunity before pumping can even begin on a widespread basis,” which, he claims, would “ …hinder the lowering of gas prices, energy independence and economic stimulus for Pennsylvania… ”

What does the current miniscule exploration for natural gas in Pennsylvania—which, even combined with New York, would yield only about two year’s worth of total U.S. consumption—have to do with the price of gasoline? How will it affect the cost of home heating oil this winter? Most importantly, why does Representative Rohrer not want to protect our water, land and air? Why does he attempt to confuse natural gas drilling with the high price of oil? Why does he portray international and national energy companies such as Chesapeake Energy, BP Global, and Cabot Oil & Gas as “Pennsylvania gas drillers,” who will suffer “a devastating public policy setback” if environmental concerns are addressed—environmental concerns such as forcing the drilling companies to publicly disclose the toxic chemicals and biocides they inject by the millions of gallons into our land and through our aquifers.

We may not be able to control the price of gasoline, but we must be able to control what is done to our water and land. I would hope that to be the goal of all people.

To view representative Rohrer’s press release and my response to it in full,click here.

(James Barth is a resident of Beach Lake, PA and a member of Damascus Citizens for Sustainability, damascuscitizens.org. )